All About Scrappy Binding + Coin Quilt #2 (quilt reveal)

The other day I asked you about scrappy binding on Instagram. I was surprised how even things were on this topic. There were many who loved it, many who did not, and many who had never heard of it.

Today I’m going into details about where the scrappy binding comes from, how to make it yourself and lots and lots of pictures.

Where it comes from

You’re binding a quilt and are left with this piece of binding. Sometimes it’s ten inches, sometimes it’s twenty. It can be any size under the moon, but there is almost always a leftover piece. I might have made one quilt in all my years of quilting where I cut my binding so close that it I didn’t have that leftover binding piece.

The thing is it’s already made into binding.

For me, that means it gets tossed into a box with many other pieces of leftover binding. I’ve also seen people keep them in rolls and when the roll gets too big, it’s time to use, but I just toss mine in box and let it be.

I’ve been doing this for years and years and every now and then remember to make up some scrappy binding for a quilt.

The combinations for this are really endless. I can use all the same color and have a pretty standard looking binding. I can mix and match and go mega scrappy. I can do half and half. I can make a fairly standard binding and then stick a pop of color in the middle of it and make you say, “so cool!” Truly, there are too many possibilities to name.

How to make it

Let’s do this step by step:

Add up all four sides of your quilt and add 10″ to that number.
Write this number down and go and get a calculator.
Pull your binding scraps from your box, measure them, and keep a running total of all the pieces you are pulling.
When you reach the number you wrote down, stop pulling pieces.
Take your strips to your sewing maching, open them up and sew all of them end to end.
Now go to your ironing board and just press the seams you have just sewn open.

Voila! You’ve got scrappy binding.

Product Spotlight

Fat quarter (18”x22”) bundle of the No Place Like Home collection by Carolyn Leah Duncan. 9 fat quarters for a total of 2.25 yards.

Purchase here.

Let’s see it on a quilt, shall we?

This is my second Coin quilt this month. See the first here.

If you are wondering why two, there were so many scraps in my coin box that I was able to make two quilts. This one is much smaller at 50″ square.

Notice the binding on this quilt. I did all low volume and turquoise and teal fabrics for it. One corner is teal and one corner is low volume. I think it looks pretty cool!

Here’s a close up.

A lot of times I feel the binding gets lost unless I use something bold. Or it does to me. It’s not terribly noticeable at first glance. For some quilts, the binding is important and for some not so much.

If you were asking me for advice, I’d tell you I love scrappy binding and that I never waste fabric, but I’m going to save it just for certain quilts.

Particularly, if I’m making a scrappy quilt. It really gets lost in this Coin quilt.

Are you even noticing it?

Here’s a pic of one of my guest book quilts that I used it on as well.

My favorite way to use it is to give myself some restraints. I don’t go completely scrappy crazy. I set perimeters. For the Coin quilt, it was all teal and low volume. For the guest book quilt, I used aqua, low volume and two pops of coral.

If you decide to use it, I’d love to see and know your thoughts. Tag me in a picture or leave a comment below.